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Review : listening to audio in HTC Touch Diamond June 20, 2008 [Pocket PC phone] | By Edward J. R. HTC Touch Diamond has 4 GB of built-in memory and generally can be considered as an MP3 player with a phone in it. Here we are testing audio capabilities of HTC Touch Diamond because nowadays they are vital not only for listening to music (that is now increasingly available for legal purchase in clear, DRM-free, MP3 encoding) but also for podcasts, i.e. audio files accessible also through RSS feeds for automatic downloads (so that new episodes appear in your device automatically without you needing to go to some website and needing to download it manually one by one). File manila.exe contains HTC TouchFLO 3D home-screen plugin (yes, it is plug-in - you can switch it off/on the same way as you switch off/on other home-screen plug-ins) that contains various functionality and gives pleasant view to various information - with nice 3D graphical effects with use of hardware-based 3D graphics acceleration. However if we put aside all that nice graphical effects, HTC TouchFLO 3D in HTC Touch Diamond offers also something new, namely ability to see album art (images embedded in audio files): 
Image is worth more than thousand words so let's take a look how the same audio file looks like in a standard Windows Media player of Windows Mobile: 
In case of the above podcast one could ask "why bother? this album art has no information!" but it is not always the case: sometimes podcasts and audio files with music have album art that is very relevant to the content as this example shows: 
It is worth mentioning, that with use of a PC and ActiveSync it is possible to get album art inside of Windows Media player of Windows Mobile but if one is copying files to Windows Mobile phone over WiFi, over cellular networks or just over USB memory drive then album art does not appear in Windows Media player. This is serious mistake on part of Microsoft and HTC has corrected it! Note: HTC Touch Diamond can be switched into mode in which one can see it as simple logical memory drive - in this way copying audio files (and other files) is possible also without the need to install any Windows Mobile synchronization software from Microsoft! It is vital both in case of corporate world where it is not allowed to install 3rd party applications on PCs and in the case of Mac computers for which Microsoft is not delivering any official synchronization software for Windows Mobile. Another sign, that HTC Touch Diamond was designed to be a good audio player is availability of "audio booster" option: 
... that obviously is available only when stereo headset (included in the kit) is connected: 
Interestingly HTC has included an RSS feed reader and podcast downloader - RSS Hub from Ilium software: 
... what is a brilliant decision! In other words one can also download podcasts (see screen-shot above) to HTC Touch Diamond without the need to use a PC computer! Once downloaded given podcast can be browsed and listened to: 
Note: to add our own podcast to your podcast subscription list please enter the following URL: http://x.msmobiles.com/portal/podcast.xml ! Here is this address again for easier access: HTC Touch Diamond includes also an application for video and audio streaming with RTSP protocol so you get also better support for live radio streaming but keep in mind then, that unlimited data plan/tariff is needed for such thing usually - available from your mobile operator/carrier, not from HTC. On top of audio files in MP3 standard - a lossy global standard for audio, HTC Touch Diamond can play audio in several other formats, including M4A that is popular among some podcasters. When it comes to stereo headset connector then it is in a proprietary format of HTC - so called "HTC ExtUSB". Even though high-quality stereo headset is included with the phone, we would prefer to have here a standard 2.5 mm or 3.5 mm stereo headset connector but one can get cheap adapters to accommodate any headset. Unfortunately also other Windows Mobile manufacturers prefer to put proprietary connectors so HTC is no different here. HTC Touch Diamond supports also stereo audio over Bluetooth - A2DP and one can use any stereo Bluetooth headset for this purpose. Conclusion: HTC Touch Diamond is a very good device for listening to audio. The included 4GB of memory means, that one is getting right from the scratch a place for your audio files! Ability to view album art is precious for many podcasts and some music files. The included podcast downloader is very handy and means that you don't need PC computer anymore - you can do everything right from the phone.  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later) [ 8 Comments ]
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